Well, good morning to all of you. Thank you so much, Justin, for that prayer and for our worship, too. It was wonderful to be able to sing praise together and seek the Lord together. If you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 90 as we continue our series this summer in the Psalms, Psalm 90, our culture maintains that we exist in a sterile, valueless multiverse, I think is what they would say, instead of universe, a multiverse, the product of evolution, individually, without any inherent meaning or purpose. Let me just say that again. Our culture maintains that we exist in a sterile, valueless multiverse as the product of evolution without any inherent meaning or purpose. But the Bible tells a different story. And Psalm 90 is the only psalm that is a prayer of Moses. This is the only psalm. You can read other songs that he wrote in the book of Deuteronomy, but here Moses has written a psalm that is kept for us in God's word by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So we're gonna look at Psalm 90, and I'm gonna try to write a little bit on the board here as we do. And the Psalm can be divided into three parts. The first part is Moses' confession. And here we don't mean his confession of sin, but we mean his confession of faith, Moses' confession of faith in verses one and two. And then the second part starts at verse 3 and continues, I think, through verse 12. And this is Moses' lament. We talked about lament this morning in our men's Bible class. Lament is a kind of prayer that is the voice of suffering. Moses here describes the misery of humankind under the curse, under sin, and the struggles that we have in this world. And so he describes human misery, and we call this a lament. It is a voice of sorrow from verse 3. I think it is through verse 11 or verse 12. And then, finally, we have Moses' prayer. verse 12 through 17, where he falls upon the grace of God and he seeks the grace of God in order to rectify the misery that is part of going through this life. So this is how we've outlined Psalm 90, Moses' confession in verses one and two. Verses 3 through 11, Moses' lament as he speaks of human misery, and then Moses' prayer for the grace of God as he makes request of God in the last part of it here. So Moses tells a different story. In verses 1 and 2, you can see he says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. If you notice those last three words of verse two, here is a very clear confession. You are God. And he says about God that he is the dwelling place of his people in verse 1. You are the fortified, protective, secure dwelling for your people. You are our refuge. We take our security under your wings. We are kept safe by you. And so he speaks of God as our refuge. And if you go back and read Deuteronomy 32, 33, As you read those chapters, you'll see other expressions where he speaks of that the Lord God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and other expressions just like this. In other words, this is the Lord's world. This is not a universe in which no one is whole. The evolutionists, The secularists, the naturalists, they take the universe as being a place where no one is at home. Man is alone. And he must make it on his own. But that is not the world that Moses describes here. In fact, we could draw a line And here I'll put the Lord. And on the other side of the line, we can write all other reality. So the Lord is not part of the universe that he has made. The Lord transcends the universe. And he's unique, the uniqueness of God here. There's nothing like him in the universe, in the created realm, there's nothing like him. He is separate from all other reality. And we could say about his uniqueness, he's unique because Moses tells us that he is the creator. So he talks about before the earth came forth, before he laid the foundation of the world, he is God. And so he's the creator. He's also the ruler. Since he made all things, he is also the sovereign ruler over all things. And so he is in charge. There's not somebody else who gets a vote in what happens. The Lord is sovereign and rules over all things. And I think even as we read this, you know, you can see he speaks of his attribute of being eternal. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. When we read that expression, it reminds us that God is infinite. You and I as created beings, we are finite. We are limited. But God is unlimited. He does not change. He's immutable. He is infinite. And so the Lord is different from us. He is the creator and he is the ruler. We could add, too, to this of the uniqueness of God. is that he is the only one who is worthy of worship. Moses first confesses who God is. This is the conviction of Moses as he prays over the problems and pains of mankind. This is his conviction, and this is the basis for his prayer in seeking God in grace. And not only does this These first two verses show us the transcendence of God, that he is over all. But it also shows us the eminence, his nearness, that though God is over all, and though he is unique and he is not part of creation, he's different from all other reality, nevertheless, he created all things. And Moses says, you are our dwelling place. You are our home. You are our home. And he says, through all generations. In other words, for us, things keep changing. With God, they don't change. But for us, they keep changing. Moses knew what life was like in Egypt. They were slaves. He knew what it was like to go through the wilderness and all the wanderings and the 40 years of suffering and difficulties there. And he knew what it was to see the promised land, even though he did not enter in. But no matter what they go through, no matter what our geographical location, no matter what our time and place, God is always there. His people belong to Him, and He is our home. Regardless of where we are physically, we always belong to the Lord. We even sang it this morning, that He is our hope in life and death. We belong to Him, body and soul, and He is our hope in life and in death. So this is the Lord's world in which we live. We live for God. We live through God's grace and means. He sustains us, all people. He sustains all living things. We live for Him and through Him. We live to Him. He is the purpose for which we live. And beloved, if we don't understand this, if we don't understand this, we will lead meaningless lives. Meaningless lives. Apart from God, life has no meaning. God did not create a world where you could live for yourself or live for this world or pursue the pleasures of this world and find significance, meaning, and satisfaction. Apart from God, we cannot find meaning in this world. And so Moses here confesses, you are God. You are the creator. You formed the earth and the world. You are our dwelling place in all generations. What a wonderful confession that is. But then he tells us about the misery of mankind. See, remember that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. And so that means that he wrote Genesis 1, 2, 3. So Genesis 3 is where the fall takes place. He wrote about creation, but then he wrote about human rebellion. And in fact, when we get to verse 3 here, it reminds us of Genesis 3.19, where after man had sinned, after he had rebelled, God tells him that part of the sorrow is that he will die. In the day that you eat thereof, you will die. And he tells Adam, you are going to die. And so he says, you return man to dust. Moses says to God that he is the one who turns man back to dust. He introduced death into this world, a perfect world. There was no death before sin, but sin brought about death. And so God commands, you return man to dust. But then he says, in verse 3, return, O children of man. Now, incidentally, you know, the word for man here is Adam, which is where we get our name, the name Adam. He says, children of Adam, return. So sin has brought us under the, has subjected us to death, but God calls us to repentance and he says, return your children of Adam. So yes, it is true that we will die and that we will return to dust, but God offers grace to us even in the midst of our fallen condition. And he says, return, O children of men. I take it as a play on the words here that he returns us to dust, but he speaks to us and our mortality calls out to us to return to him. So I want to write a few words up here that if I don't write them out, I might forget to put them up here. But in Moses' discussion of man's misery, He speaks of man's mortality, and he speaks of our brevity, and he speaks of our vanity, and he speaks of our futility, and of our frailness. frailty as well. And there may be a few others you can find as we talk about this, but in this passage that continues down through verse 11 and then concludes in verse 12, you can see here all of these descriptors of mankind So look at what he says as he's describing in his lament of man's mortality and his brevity. He says, Our experience of time is so interesting. Because sometimes you can come to the end of the day and it seemed like morning was a week ago, you know? And sometimes you may wake up and you say, what day is this? What day is this? Because the days have run together and they go by so quickly. Job said that his days were like a weaver's shuttle. And if you watched a shuttle as a weaver is putting together a tapestry or a blanket, you know, and they're moving so quickly. And he says here that a thousand years in God's sight is as yesterday when it is gone. So God in his timelessness is not affected the way that we are. It is, he says, as a watch in the night, they would divide their nighttime guards into watches. And so they had three, four hour watches. And that's how fast, just that little time, you know, how quick in a person's sleep, four hours have gone by. And you wake up and you say, I can't believe it's already four o'clock. It's already six o'clock. And so this speaks of the mortality of man, the brevity of man. And then he says in verse 5, you sweep them away as with a flood. So, you know, man can seem like he is so permanent. It can seem as though what we're doing is going to last a long time, but God can just sweep it away. Do you remember some years ago when that tsunami hit in the Pacific and hit Japan, wiped out so many homes and buildings and so forth? And up high on the island nation, there was a lot that had been put there, very ancient, I think it was more than 500 years old, that said, don't build beyond this point. because they had experienced tsunamis before. And God can come in and what seems so permanent to us can be swept away in just a moment. And so he says, you sweep them away as with a flood. They are like a dream. And what he means by this is you ever experience in the morning, you wake up and you're just, just waking up, but then you fall back asleep for just a moment. You, you wake up and you see, you look at your clock and you see what time it is and you fall back asleep and you start to have a dream. And then suddenly you wake up again, oh, what time is it? And why? It's only a minute has passed, or maybe it's still the same minute, but you had a dream in that little period of time, and now the dream is gone. And that is exactly the brevity and frailty of our lives. We can be swept away like in a flood, like a dream that's gone, like grass that grows in the morning, flourishes, renewed, but in the evening it fades and it withers. It's all of these speak of the frailty and brevity of human life. We are mortals. In verse 7, he says, So notice here, he speaks in verse 7 of your anger and your wrath. And then in verse 8, he speaks of our iniquities and our secret sins. Now, these things are in parallel. You see, when man rebelled, God brought the curse. We could even add the word curse to that list of things. He brought judgment upon mankind. And if you read Genesis 3, you can read about God's judgment. Even now, the Bible tells us, Romans 1.18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. I remember reading that when I was a young man, and I was looking at that, I said, that's a present tense, that's a present, the wrath of God is presently being revealed. How is the wrath of God, I understand that judgment is coming, but how is the wrath of God being revealed against man as he suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness? And the answer is, is that God's wrath is, it is being revealed to us by the frustrations, the sorrows, the diseases, the sickness, the pain, the hardships, the disappointments, all of these things are the result of sin. And sin brings with it God's demonstrable wrath and anger. And so our existence as human beings is filled with sin. all kinds of frustrations and hardships as he describes them here, and it's because of sin. It may be because of someone else's sin, but it may be because of your parents' sin, or it may be because of the general sin of mankind, but all sorrow and suffering in the world is the result of sin. It may not be your sin in particular, it may, but it is the result of sin in general, original sin. The fall and rebellion of man has resulted in God resisting us. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And so God is in the process of putting us to death. He is in the process of frustrating our goals, of making it hard for us to make a living, right? Read Genesis chapter 3. Of making it difficult to raise a family. That's right. Genesis chapter 3. All these things came about as a result of sin. And they continue to be manifested in our experience today. our relationships. Also, we find ourselves under those struggles because that's the result of sin. In verse 9, he says, for all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh. And so, vanity, vanity, the emptiness. God confronts us with death. I told you maybe two weeks ago that the dust of death covers everything. That's a quote from Francis Schaeffer, I think, in his book on Judges. And so, the dust of death covers everything. No matter what you may plan, No matter what endeavor, no matter what good, there may be in this world, in this fallen world, the dust of death covers everything. Everything is affected by sin and by emptiness and frustration and meaninglessness. And so he says we come to the end of our life And he says, even if your life is 70 or 80 years long because of strength, yet it is filled with toil and trouble. And this is absolutely true. It does not mean that there are not joys and blessings and encouragements and so forth, but we live in a fallen world, and it can turn upside down at any moment. Those of you that have lived long enough know that this is true. And then we come to verse 11, and this is really, verse 11 is where the lament concludes. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? In other words, God confronts us with the dust of death. He confronts us with the emptiness of life, the meaningless of life apart from him. He tears us down. He shows us our vanity and our mortality and our frailty so that He can give us life, so that He can build us up, so that He can give meaning to our existence. But first, we have to exhaust all of our efforts to live life on our own. And when we exhaust all of those efforts, then God can give us. He can give us because of humility. When we begin to fear God, and we are humbling ourselves before Him, and we realize this is God's world, this is not my world. I'm not some autonomous individual who can determine my own destiny, but I am a created being, I'm a creature, and I owe all my existence to God, and I exist for Him, and He created me for Him, and I cannot live apart from Him. As we come to that place, then we recognize and we fear, begin to fear the Lord, humility. So we could add that as maybe another word, humility, here as well. In verse 11, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And until we come to that place, we cannot be wise. And it's at that point that the last part of Moses' prayer opens up in verse 12. Here is the grace principle, because the distance between God and man is so great that we cannot reach up to God. And so God has condescended to us, especially He has condescended to us in His Son. All of the covenants of the Old Testament are God condescending to us in our need. God's first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3.15, that the seed of a woman would crush the head of the serpent, his promise to send a savior into the world who would be a human, but will also be divine. And he promised to send his son. And so the grace principle dominates Moses' prayer here. I might point out in verse 13, he says, return, O Lord, how long? You noticed earlier, he had said, return man to dust. He tells man, you're gonna die. You're going back to dust. It's judgment. But he calls us to repentance. He says, return, O children of Adam. Return, O children of Adam. And now Moses turns this around and he recognizes we can't return to God unless he turns to us. I cannot turn to God unless he turns to me. And so, in verse 13, he says, return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. We need your compassion, he says. We need your mercy. And what is it that we need in particular that he provides for us? He provides for us the Lord Jesus Christ, who comes into a world that is fallen, comes into a world that is filled with pain, sorrow, frustration, tragedy, death, disease, and he overcomes it all. He's the spotless Son of God. Sin does not affect Him. He is. He overcomes. He never sins. Sin is not in Him. He did not know sin. Neither was guile found in His mouth. In Him is no sin. He's the sinless Son of God. He heals the diseased people, thousands of them. He heals sicknesses. He raises dead people. He opens the eyes of the blind. He opens the ears of the deaf. Here is the one who destroys the serpent, who crushes the serpent's head upon the cross. Here is the one who is able to redeem us out of our fall and out of our misery. And so it is through the Lord Jesus that God works his redemption of our lives. And so Moses prays in light of the grace of God, and he says in verse 12, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Now to number your days, I remember Brother Jerry Burns one time was thinking about this verse and figured out how many days he had been alive. And I thought it was an awesome thing to do because to be aware of my limits, we don't know how long that we have, that I need to apply my heart to wisdom if I'm going to live in a way that glorifies God and that has meaning. In fact, I was thinking about the passage in Ephesians 5, let me just read, where Paul says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Just what Moses said. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And that's exactly what Moses means here. He says, Lord, we need wisdom to live. If I'm going to live a life that is meaningful, a life that is redemptive, a life that is glorifying to you, a life that fulfills the purpose for which you created me. I have to live with wisdom. And Paul says, don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don't live like some kind of fool. By going your own way, rather submit yourself to the will and the command of God. In verse 14, he says, satisfy. So he says, teach us so that we can gain wisdom. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love. And here's another reference to God's covenant love. The word steadfast love is his faithful love, his covenant love for his people. Because your love, your covenant love, is better than life, mine lips shall praise you. Psalm 63 and verse 3. So satisfy us. You know, how do you wake up in the morning? with great effort, I'm sure, but how do you wake up? What's your perspective? Well, Moses here says that for the life that is lived for God's glory, that you can wake up with satisfaction that you're doing the will of God. You know, our Savior, when He lived His life here, and He was with the woman at the well at Samaria, and His disciples came, and they asked Him, you know, some questions, and He says, I have meat to eat. They were buying food. He says, I have meat to eat, food to eat that you don't know of. And they said, why is somebody bringing food? He says, my food is to do the will of my father who sent me and to finish his work. In other words, what satisfies us is to do the will of God. That's what satisfies the heart, is to do the will of God. and to wake up in the morning with a vision for doing the will of God, that is what satisfies the heart of a believer. That is what makes our lives significant and worth living. If we are living lives of foolishness and ignorance, then our lives are going to be meaningless. but it is when we are committed to the will of God. You remember that passage in 1 John 2, where he tells us, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. And then he goes on to say that this world is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever. And so here we are being strengthened to live our lives according to the will of God so that we may enjoy the satisfaction of God's pleasure and that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. In fact, the joy that you will have, whatever time you have left, if it's just one day, if you submit yourself to God, live in his fear, apply your heart to wisdom, to do his will, then the satisfaction you will have in your life, the meaning and significance you will enjoy is better than whatever time you have spent wasted away. Whatever time wasted. I had a good friend. His name was Doug Motley. And when I was 18, I met him and he was, oh, in his 60s then. And it's hard to believe that we would become such good friends. But I was just visiting his church, visiting some friends, and I heard him pray. I heard him pray. And afterwards, I went to him because I was so joined to him in his prayer, in his love for God and his seeking of God. And he told me, he said, you know, I became a believer when I was 55 years old. He said, I spent my whole life drinking and gambling and throwing it away. He said it was, I would, the sun would go down. I would be drinking and gambling. The sun would come up. I would be doing the same thing. He said, but God saved me. And now I want my whole life to be devoted to him. I was with him when he died and I'm going to see him again. And so what a wonderful thing. And this is why I tell you is that Doug's life Although so much of his life had been wasted under the wrath and frustration and emptiness and meaninglessness of sin, his life from that point on was more satisfying. It was better. He found Christ is better than anything else this world offers me to live. You know, we live in a world that is full of activism. And I believe it's because people have a sense that their lives should count for something. My life should count for something. So they're deeply involved in activism. but their lives are as empty as can be. Because it's not activism, it's living for Christ. It is knowing that my life is from him and for him and through him and living my life for him. And so Moses says, make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. The Lord is better than all the evil we have seen. And then in verses 16 and 17, he speaks of the work of the Lord. He says, let your work be shown to your servants, your glorious power to your children. Now, I take it this when he speaks of your glorious power and that's parallel to your work, your work be shown, your glorious power. He says, we want to see this. It is the work of redemption in Christ. In other words, he says, Lord, show us what you have accomplished in and through your redemption. Show us what you have accomplished through the blood of the covenant. Show us what you have accomplished because He has justified us, declared us righteous in the sight of God. He has given to us truth so that we understand the difference between right and wrong, so that we know what to believe. He gives to us meaning. He gives us beauty. Beauty, truth, life, eternal life, righteousness, virtue, all of these things are the redemptive work that ultimately is accomplished through Christ, but Moses sees them here as from a distance. Lord, show us your work. This is the work where he has taken our lives that were worthless and empty and under his wrath, And he has granted us forgiveness and life and truth and beauty and favor. In verse 17, let the favor, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands. The Bible says that you were created in Christ Jesus unto good works, Ephesians 2 and verse 10. You were created in Christ Jesus for good works that God foreordained that we should walk in them. This has to do with your vocation. God has given you your vocation. And maybe your vocation right now is a student, maybe it's a mother, maybe it is you're a banker, maybe you have some other role that you fulfill, but your vocation, your calling, as it were, your calling has meaning because as a priest, what you do is offered up to God. Your work every day is offered up to God. Your preparation of that meal, your tutoring and teaching of your children, your labor through problems at work, your overcoming of difficulties in communication with other employees and with supervisors and so forth. Your undertaking of all of those things is the work of God. He establishes the work of your hands so that what you are doing is worship unto Him. And your life has great meaning. You don't have to be a missionary if God calls you, amen, but you don't have to be a missionary for your life to count for God. Just live your life as unto Him. And this is what he promises to do, to establish the work of our hands. It is by our labors that we serve our neighbor, that we serve our families. It is through our work that we are able to serve God as a priest before him. And so as believer-priest, the Lord establishes the work of your hands. And he prays that twice. Establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands. May the beauty of the Lord rest upon us.